"He got me pregnant." Alexia whimpered, bursting into a fresh set of tears.
"On purpose?" Jess asked, trying, and failing to picture Rider doing something so devious.
"No not on purpose! But I'm pregnant, and it's all his fault. I have to have a baby! I'm too young! What if they catch up with me?? What if they kill her? I can't have a baby now! There's too much danger! He's an idiot!"
Max, Sabeen, and Jess exchanged looks with each other. Now was clearly not the time to remind Alex that it took two people to make a baby.
It took two people to have sex without protection. All of a sudden Jess realised what she'd done. She'd had unprotected sex with Finn.
She stared blindly at the wall trying to calculate which part of her cycle she was in. She was pretty sure she'd be ok, but there was no certainty when it came to stuff like this. She knew that. She was an idiot.
And she was sure as hell making sure that it never happened again.
With effort Jess drew herself back into the room, and set her mind back on the current problem.
"Sweetie, you know we're all here to protect and support you right? That's kind of our job... And that goes double for the baby." Sabeen reassured Alex.
"And you have Rider. You've got a mate, a daddy, a body guard, and if he pisses you off a baby sitter, diaper changer, and night time nurse, all in one." Jess piped up looking pleased with herself.
Something about the idea of Rider having to change nappies just appealed to her sense of humour.
Alex nodded. "I know. I'm just a bit... I'm only twenty two, what if I screw up?"
She trailed off lamely. She sure as heck didn't have a great motherly role model to follow the example of. The Queen, Alex's mother, had banished her from the country in an attempt to save face, and her relationship with the man Alex had been calling 'Dad' for fourteen years, when her real parentage had come to light.
Alex's real father was an unknown member of the Theris family - the family who had lead a recent uprising against the royal family, and the council of shifters. They'd failed - just barely - but the uprising had killed many people. As a result the remaining Theris family members had been slaughtered.
Sabeen ruffled Alexia's hair, breaking her out of her maudlin thoughts. "Sweetheart, you're plenty old enough. Us shifters mature young, and you couldn't screw this up if you tried. You're a natural leader, you care about everyone, and you're protective as hell."
"I hate to be the voice of reason here - it's really not my strong point - but are you sure you're pregnant?" Max asked.
Alex wiped the last of her tears away from her cheeks and laughed humourlessly.
"I peed on a lot of sticks. Lots and lots. More than ten of them, all different brands. Not one of them came back negative. I'm pretty sure."
"And Rider?"
"He's over the fucking moon. Dancing around like an idiot. How the hell am I supposed to raise a child with him? He wants to name her Violet! Violet! Who names a child Violet!"
Sabeen and Jess exchanged an amused glance. Jess had always thought Violet was a pretty name for a girl. Of course she wasn't going to voice that opinion just yet. Perhaps later when Alex was over the shock of realising she was going to have a baby.
Rider chose that moment to enter Sabeen and Marcus's room. He didn't bother with knocking. He was pretty sure that no one would have answered anyway. Gabriel was hot on his cousin's heels, wondering if he was going to have to save the younger leopard from his pregnant (and not just a little pissed off) mate.
Rider had decided to jump on in and provoke her. Sometimes it genuinely wasn't a smart idea, but he found that generally the more pissed off about something Alex was the less time it took her to get over whatever it was that was bothering her.
"Red you're being an idiot about this. We're having a baby, it's not the end of the world."
Alex, true to her nickname, saw red. Jerking up off the bed she grabbed the nearest thing she could find (Jess's ham sandwich) and threw it at Rider.
"I'm being an idiot?
I'm being an idiot?!?!
I'm going to be bringing a baby into a world where people want to kill us. I am going to be pregnant and fat for nine whole months, My entire life is going to change because
you
forgot the condom."
"Oh all of a sudden I'm the one and only person who's ever forgotten the condom? Please Red, like you've never been caught up in the moment."
"I am the one who's going to have to go through labour, so yes it is your fault. And while we're on labour - do you have any idea what that's going to do to my vagina?! Huh? I'll tell you one thing, you're sure as hell not
going
to know because you're never getting sex again!"
Rider grimaced "First: ew. Second: you're joking about the no sex thing aren't you darlin?"
"EW?! EW?! We're talking about the miracle of birth here you ass, and you've got the nerve to say ew?"
Gabriel decided that perhaps they'd had enough time together. He pulled Rider out of the room and shut the door for a moment.
"Perhaps you should be taking a different approach to this. Provoking the hormonal woman doesn't seem to be the smartest idea you've ever had."
Rider grinned. "I find it's best to let her get all the fear, anger, and aggression out in one big hit. That way she'll deal with it and we won't have any nasty surprises later on."
"Right. If I wasn't so excited to be an uncle, I'd be telling you that you two are one hell of a weird couple. You've got a little mustard on your face."
Rider ignored the weird couple comment "What is with the women of this house throwing things when they get pissed off? At least it wasn't a vase."
Gabriel frowned at the memory of Max hurling a vase at his head. It hadn't been their finest moment. Rider settled in to wait by the door, looking for all the word like the bodyguard he had originally been.
Popping his head back into the room Gabriel saw that Jess had broken out the ice cream. He genuinely was excited about having a niece or nephew. All he had to do now is make sure he could keep them all safe.
Turning his attention to Max Gabriel shot her a sexy grin, and told her that he'd be in the office when the girls were done, and that perhaps they should all do their own thing for dinner that night instead of making her cook for the group.
Max's eyes lit up with relief. She hated cooking, and kind of sucked in a big way at it. Luckily with more people in the house these days her turn came around less often, and she was more able to get away with ordering pizza.
As it was she was on a first name basis with most of the delivery guys.
Alex spoke up from around a mouthful of ice cream "I heard what you said out there Gabriel. I'm not hormonal."
"I know you're not sweetie." He smiled to himself, privately thinking the exact opposite.
Gabriel shut the door behind him as he headed to his office. Rider stayed put on guard outside Sabeen's room. He was pretty sure that this junk food conference was going to be a short one. Alexia was just as excited over the baby as he was, she just needed some time to assimilate the information.
***
Gabriel should have spent the afternoon working on a security upgrade for Alexia. Instead he spent it thinking about Max. Their relationship was going well, despite the rocky start.
A few months ago Max had moved into his suite of rooms with him - although she had kept her own 'just in case.' He knew that she was worried about what would happen when he got bored with her, and that she didn't quite understand that it just wasn't going to happen.
He had asked her to get rid of her rooms entirely once, although he'd gone about it in the most ham-fisted way possible. He'd accused her of not trusting him, of holding his past against him, and even of having a crush on Finn. She'd reacted by throwing a vase at his head.
It had brought him back to his senses pretty quickly.
He brought her a new vase, some flowers, and a kitten which she'd named Shark Bait. After a lengthy apology she explained that her trust issues were just that - hers. They had nothing to do with their relationship it was just a mindset that Max couldn't quite break herself from.
Gabriel wondered if perhaps it was time to show her how permanent his feelings for her were.
Most Shifters did not marry. Instead once they had found their life mate it was mutually acknowledged and then accepted as a fact. It was a lot easier to pass in the human world however, if the partnership was made legal.
Having not really grown up immersed in Shifter culture, Max would probably place a lot more confidence in a tangible contract, rather than a verbal agreement. More than that Gabriel wanted the chance to stand up with her in front of their friends and family to declare his love for her. It was a touching ritual, and he could certainly appreciate the meaning behind it.
"...I will have to put a bit more thought into it than the 'move in with me properly' speech..." He mused to himself and shaking his head regretfully - although there was pretty much no way that a marriage proposal could go that badly. He hoped.
***
Finn knocked once on Marcus and Sabeen's door before shouldering is way into their suite. Instead of either of the rooms actual occupants Rider was standing on guard outside the bedroom.
Finn couldn't read the look on his face, a rare thing for Rider, who usually had on one of two expressions: cocky, or stubborn. Occasionally it was a mix of the two, but today there seemed to be a whole new range.
